Pebble Heart
by Prayer Machine
Summary: She dances, one last time.


When she was a child, she used to make pictures out of pebbles.

Sometimes, it took a long time. Only because, whenever she did the eyes, she made sure to collect just the right colour. It seemed important, then, to get the eyes right… even when the mouth was just a thin black line and the face itself just a childish, lopsided scrawl. But it didn't matter, so long as the eyes were right, then she was happy.

All morning, she'd been walking up and down the beach. The sand sank between her toes, and the sea gently lapped the shore and pushed up pebble-eyes just for her to collect. She'd scoured a myriad of agates that had been smoothed and shaped by the tossing and turning waves. Storing them in neat little satchel, she cradled every brown and black, and found her heart pulsing with a kind of nostalgic joy every time she came across that rare shimmering green. It was blue, though, that seemed to be the hardest to accept.

Coiling her fingers around her satchel, she felt it pull her down, just a bit, by the weight of stone and sand. She'd meant to wash them out, but… looking towards the villagers that were gathering on the coast line, she guessed she didn't really have the time.

Nodding her head as she heard Wakka call her name, she sighed a little, and shouted "Coming!" Picking up the pace, her boots kicked up a shower of sand behind her - and she was quickly bathed in the glowing smiles of all the elders and her friends. Bowing low, her smile slowly began to etch away as the scent of a funeral candle opened like a wound in the air.

"You be careful out there, ya? Don't strain yourself," Wakka patted her on her back, and she just lowered her head.

"I'll be fine," flicking her mismatched eyes back up to those chocolate browns, she gave the biggest smile she could. "This could be… the last time, I do this."

"You sure?"

"Mm," she nodded, bowing ever so slightly. "Maybe not, but." Looking over towards the candles and the baskets of flowers and ashes, she found her lips forming the smallest of circles. Her hands knotted on her chest. "I don't think I can keep doing this, forever.

"Well, you just gotta do what you wanna do, ya?" He ran his fingers roughly in circles, as if trying to shake her into relaxation. And she smiled and nodded yes, then; even though she had no idea what she wanted to do. She had no idea, even, what she didn't want to do. She… just… didn't really know.

But now she had a sending to do, and that was all that mattered.

"It's starting," she heard Lulu say quietly, and with her smooth fingers on her arm, Yuna felt strength surge through her. It was… a kind of faux-strength, an automatic strength, one that she could always rest her back on without really thinking about at all. But it was enough.

Nodding, she pulled away from the spider-tangle of warmth that her guardians had wound around her. A raft was set out to sea, and to it her feet were drawn. Liquid pooled beneath her toes, and she relaxed Her staff was summoned and swinging it out by her side, she tossed her eyes up towards the skies.

The dying sun marked her ascent.

When she began to slowly and steadily swing her staff, a few fluttering pyreflies gushed from their prison. Tossing her head back, she caught sight of Wakka gently lowering a blitzball into the water - and, blinking mid-turn, she immediately understood. Looking to his face, she had never seen him so grief stricken.

She swallowed her heart.

The water beneath her pushed her up, and she rose, higher and higher, turning all the while. The few flies had already been and gone, but she refused to stop. Her satchel bounced. Opening it, she reached in with one hand while she turned and turned, and grabbed a handful of brown pebbles.

For all those she could not save, she danced.

For the children of Kilka, the now parentless, husbandless, childless people of Kilka, she danced. At the top of her turn, she dropped the pebbles down all around her, the 'ploop ploops' singing in her ear.

For the people of Operation Mi'ihen, oh, holy Mi'ihen, she found green stones and sand. The swirling eyes and goggles and boom boom of Machina roared in her ears, and Sin thundered high above in her mind, corpses turned to dust in moments quicker than her fall or her rise. She scattered those stones and sand, and danced above them.

For all the Ronso whose fur had been stripped to make a path for a man with brooding eyes to walk across, she lifted her yellow agates. The warmth and soft soft cores of a species brought to the brink of destruction rang true across her skin, and she shivered beneath the thoughts of Gagazet as gold stones sailed around her when she bowed atop the water lilly.

For the boy from Zanarkand with wet eyes that glistened beneath his mother's smile, she danced. For the man with spiderclaws and lips that tasted of dust and cobwebs, she danced. For the man she'd twirled for, raged for, and slaughtered, she danced. She'd taken her hands and gently brushed them across his eyes and now she held them within the palm of her hand. The two blue stones were so rare, and so heavy - but for him they seemed so fitting. After all, when he looked at her he could make her feel as though she had been crushed beneath a rock. She was not afraid, any more She tossed the stones as far away as she could - lifting her staff high above her head as she did so, watching them sink beneath the sun.

For all the spirits that had once danced beside her, she held ten pairs of pebbles. And all of them she wished she could kiss and give her blessing, but it was too much. Too much. The red sky raged on above, and twenty stones twinkled and fell into the ocean.

There were just five pebbles left.

Red poured like liquid in her mind, and if she closed her eyes - she could hear his voice. Her father's voice. And though she could dance for him, she could only offer up a pair and one chocolate brown pebble. For the two men who protected him, loved him, and tried to help them until the end - she gave up three splashes.

And then there was just two stones left.

The blitzball drifted closer, and her eyes clouded over as she watched it bob and turn mindlessly beneath her feet.

She lifted up her staff. She lifted up her hand, and the purest blue stone ate up the light. She began to shake.

And fell.

Water spread through her nose and shot fire into her lungs. Salt inflamed her skin, and she choked, how she choked - until air rushed in and she blinked out the pain and her knees sunk deep in the sand.

How stupid was she to think that throwing away all those pebbles could throw away her hurt. How stupid was she to think that their memories could just be washed up like the pictures she had drawn as a child, and with it, her pain be leaked out and diffused within the warm waters. How stupid was she to think that she was ready, now, of all times, to drop those two blue stones into the water.

She tightened her fist, hearing Wakka splashing behind her long before his reassuring words and his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up.

And for the first time in so long, she laughed. She laughed so, so loudly. She laughed for the claws on her back and the dust in her mouth. She laughed for the lifeless blood that seeped between the rocks and sand. She laughed for all the memories the good and the bad and the… well, awful and the wonderful that would never, ever leave her - and she laughed, laughed, laughed because she shouldn't have been here to remember them at all.

She let the stones tumble and slip between her fingertips.

Two, beautiful, blue little stones.


End file.
